With this Pledge

by Tamera Alexander

  “Genuine horsehair sutures, sir. Thanks to Tempy here.”

  He looked up. “And they’re already boiled and ready to use?”

  Tempy briefly bowed her head. “I took some outside to the other doctors too, sir.”

  Dr. Phillips nodded. “Well done. Now let’s get back to work.”

  Lizzie gave Tempy a parting smile, then felt a light pressure on her arm.

  Tempy looked up at her. “You doin’ well too, Miss Clouston,” she whispered, then glanced beyond her to the surgical table. “You doin’ real well.”

  IT WAS HALF past nine when Lizzie first noticed it—a strange stillness moving toward them from the darkened fields outside. “Do you hear that, Doctor?”

  “Hear what, Miss Clouston?”

  She turned her face into the icy breeze blowing through the open bedroom window. “The silence.”

  Scalpel in hand, he stilled. His head came up slowly. His eyes narrowed. “No cannon fire.”

  “No gunfire either.” She looked back. “Do you think it’s over?”

  He stared out the window, his expression a wash of cautious hope. “I don’t know. But let’s pray to God it is.” With a sigh, he returned to his work. “Let’s finish up here, then I need to get some coffee and take a quick walk outside to check the progress with the other surgeons. I won’t be but a few minutes, then we’ll continue. If you’re able.”

  Lizzie nodded, the headache from earlier still lingering. But at least it wasn’t getting any worse.

  Once Dr. Phillips finished and the stretcher bearers moved the soldier back to the floor, Lizzie checked on the wounded in the room, among them Captain Jones. His eyes were closed, but his steady breathing answered her most crucial question. She might have considered him asleep, if not for the firm set of his jaw. Despite his full beard, wild and unkempt, she could see the tension in him. Still, she wasn’t eager to disturb him on the outside chance he was managing to find some rest.

  She silently tallied the number of men Dr. Phillips had operated on since she’d begun assisting him. She counted twenty-one. Twenty-one men, all of whom had lost at least a portion of an arm, leg, or hand. Or combination thereof. And Dr. Phillips was only one of the near dozen doctors operating here tonight.

  A book on the same table where the doctor’s instruments lay drew her attention. Manual of Military Surgery—Confederate Army. She retrieved the book and opened the cover. 1863. Recently published. And it was illustrated, she noted with some trepidation as she flipped through the pages. The book was divided into chapter headings. “Surgical Diseases.” “Gunshot Wounds.” “On the Arteries.” “On Amputations.” And more.

  She swiftly turned to the section on amputations and began reading the detailed description of the surgery she’d just witnessed Dr. Phillips performing. Each step was described in fastidious detail. But having experienced the surgery up close made reading the text definitely less impactful. She closed the book and looked about the room, still having difficulty accepting what was happening.

  The grim realities of war simply would not meld with life as she’d known it within the walls of the McGavocks’ home for the past several years. Yet every step she took, the carpet beneath her feet saturated with blood, told her she wasn’t dreaming. And somehow she knew that the life and world she’d known were gone forever.

  The groans and cries from the men continued to tear at her. There was so little she could do for them compared to their needs. She looked over to see Captain Jones’s eyes open.

  She knelt beside him. “Captain,” she whispered. “Is there anything I can get you, sir?”

  “A pint or two of Tennessee whiskey,” he answered without hesitation, and a couple of the soldiers around him offered a hearty “Amen!” He looked over at her and gradually focused on her face. “But I’d be most grateful for a drink of water, ma’am.”

  Lizzie nodded. “Water, I can do.”

  She fetched the pail and ladle that Tempy had left in the hallway a moment earlier and spent the next several moments slaking Captain Jones’s thirst along with that of the other men in the room. She couldn’t fathom the pain they were enduring.

  “Miss Clouston . . .”

  She turned back. “Yes, Captain Jones.”

  “If you have a moment, ma’am, I’d be most grateful if you’d read this letter aloud to me.”

  “Of course.” She set aside the bucket and pail.

  Winder’s Poynor chair, which sat in the corner, and which was named after the local craftsman who’d made it, was constructed for a young boy Winder’s size, but had proven sturdy enough for her on several occasions. And since that was the only unoccupied chair in the room, she retrieved it and situated it beside the captain.

  She took the piece of crinkled stationery he held and gently smoothed the paper on her skirt, then scanned the heading.

  To Lieutenant R. W. Jones

  Nashville, Tennessee

  c/o Captain P. R. Leigh

  of the Oakachickamas

  Mississippi Volunteers

  She recalled him saying earlier that he was from Mississippi. And a sharpshooter. She glanced down at his bandaged right hand, wondering which was his trigger finger. The forefinger on his left hand? Or the one that had once been on his right? Then it occurred to her . . . Lieutenant?

  The letter must have been written before he’d been promoted to captain. She checked for a date and . . . sure enough. December 11, 1861. Almost three years ago. Which was a bit odd. She’d naturally assumed the missive would’ve borne a more recent date. She held the letter up to read.

  “‘My own Roland,’” she started softly, speaking loudly enough for him to hear while hoping others nearby could not.

  “The long looked-for letter (for it seems an age to me) has come at last. I knew it was not negligence or forgetfulness on your part that deprived me of the pleasure of hearing from my absent Roland, as his last words were ‘Weet, I will write as soon as I reach Nashville.’ Roland, it’s hard to be separated from you. I know full well that duty alone and a high sense of honor that ever prompts you to act has forced us thus apart.”

  Lizzie glanced up at him midparagraph, making sure he was still awake. Not only was he awake, but his expression held a longing that stirred within her a touch of envy toward the woman who was the recipient of this man’s loyal affections. Sweeping aside the unexpected thought, she continued reading.

  “Life here at Oak Hill is scarcely bearable without you. The house itself seems to mourn your absence along with me. I sent you a leaf clipped from my geranium that was given me by Bettie Cooke. It is growing very prettily. Write and—”

  “Please move to the next paragraph, Miss Clouston.”

  He apparently knew the letter by heart, Lizzie noted, then did as he asked.

  “How many sermons have you heard since you reached Nashville? I suppose you attend church regularly. Sister Ruthie and I walked to the garden to gather you a few flowers. On our return, we received a considerable fright from the alarm of fire. I ran as fast as I could for a few minutes, but soon found it was only soot burning in the chimney. You may be sure we felt relieved. You would have laughed could you have seen me running and screaming at every step. I am not as fleet as I once was.”

  Lizzie felt a little smile tug at her mouth and looked up to see the same on his. It felt good to share such a moment in the midst of deep shadows and pain.

  “‘How I wish you could be with us this quiet evening,’” she continued, reading a little ahead and finding it impossible not to compare the tone of her own letters to Towny with that of this letter from Mrs. Jones to her husband.

  “What a vacancy caused in my heart by your absence could be filled were it in your power to form one of the circle around our fireside. I listen every evening after the train cars pass down below for your footstep on the front porch; could I but hear it what pleasure it would bring. I must cease my communication with you for tonight. Good night, and a thousand kisses to my beloved Ro
land. With the sustaining hope of seeing you home soon, I remain your loving wife . . . Weet.”

  Lizzie sat for a moment staring at the unique name and letting the beauty of the words and their sentiments sink in.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” he whispered, emotion in his voice.

  “It was my pleasure, Captain.” She folded the letter and handed it back to him, debating whether or not to say anything. Finally, sensibilities won out. “You must miss your wife very much, sir. As she obviously misses you.”

  He didn’t look at her. He just kept staring above him at some place on the ceiling. “I miss her more than you know, Miss Clouston. More than I ever thought one person could miss another and still be drawing breath. But it’s not—”

  A commotion from downstairs echoed up the staircase, and Lizzie thought she heard a few men whooping and hollering.

  “The Yankees have tucked tail and run!” a man shouted from below. “And General Hood says he’s going to take his army to Nashville and whip General Thomas and his men to a pulp!”

  “Did you hear that, Captain? They’re saying the Federal Army has retreated.”

  Hearing what sounded like disbelief in Miss Clouston’s voice, Roland knew that if he were to be anything less than straightforward it would be dishonest. Because he knew the truth of how this war would end, as should any man who’d been on that field tonight. And anyone who believed otherwise was either a fool or a foolhardy dreamer.

  “While I loathe being the one to dash a spark of hope, Miss Clouston . . .” He paused, his legs throbbing with pain and the ache in his head—from the chloroform, he guessed—still disrupting his thoughts. “What I witnessed tonight was not a retreat. And from surveying the Federal Army’s breastworks this afternoon from atop Merrill’s Hill, then again tonight a fair piece closer up, I have a difficult time reconciling this news with what we experienced. As much as I know this will pain you to hear”—he lowered his voice—“I believe the cause for which we’ve been fighting was lost tonight.”

  Saying the words aloud all but choked him, and her injured expression conveyed her sense of loss as well. Perhaps he shouldn’t have spoken so freely with her. How long had it been since he’d actually talked with a woman? It was a welcome change, that went without saying. But conversing with Miss Clouston was a mite different from the exchanges he’d grown accustomed to having over the past three years.

  “My apologies, ma’am. I didn’t mean to—”

  “No apology required, Captain.” She briefly looked down at her hands clasped in her lap. “And I believe you may be right.”

  What strength this woman possessed. Even in the face of pending doom for the Confederacy, she bore herself with quiet dignity and grace. “I have seen things today, tonight, that even in my worst nightmares I had not begun to imagine. I am no longer naive about war, Captain. Although up until about five hours ago, I very much was. I want to know the truth of what happened out there today. So please, continue.”

  Roland looked up at her, knowing there was still a depth of naiveté within her that she would even make such a request after everything she’d already witnessed. And yet her need to know, to understand, was one he could well comprehend.

  Seeking to ease the ache in his back, he shifted slightly, and the pain in his legs catapulted to a level that caused his head to swim. He sucked in air through clenched teeth, the white-hot stabs of pain worse now than before the doctor had operated.

  He teetered on the brink of consciousness, part of him wanting to give in to it and let it drag him under full and deep, far away from all this. Away from a world that was changing in ways he’d already begun to imagine—and didn’t like. In truth, the changes scared him. Yet the other part of him knew that God wasn’t finished with him here yet. No matter that he and the Almighty hadn’t been on the best of speaking terms of late.

  CHAPTER 7

  “Captain Jones, are you all right?”

  A gentle pressure on Roland’s arm registered with him—such a contrast to the bolts of fire shooting through his veins—and he latched onto the comfort her touch and voice afforded.

  He grimaced. “I’m all right. But I think I’ve learned my lesson about trying to move.”

  “What else can I do for you, Captain? Tell me.”

  He swallowed. “You’re doing it right now, ma’am. Just give me a minute.”

  Slowly, much too slowly, the pain leveled out again and returned to a constant ache. Miss Clouston held the ladle to his lips and he drank, water dribbling down into his beard. He felt so weak, so helpless. Like a prisoner in his own body, a slave to his wounds. Yet in the same breath, he was grateful to be alive.

  “Miss Clouston, ma’am?”

  Without moving his head, Roland peered in the direction of the door and spotted the older Negro woman he’d glimpsed before.

  Miss Clouston rose. “Excuse me a moment, please, Captain.”

  The two women lowered their voices, but the sound still carried.

  “I got pots with beef bones in ’em simmerin’ on the stove, Miss Clouston. I’m waterin’ down the broth to make it stretch, but at least it’s somethin’ warm to fill their bellies. Missus McGavock wanted me to tell you. We figured we might use the water pails to serve it up, seein’ as we don’t got enough cups to go round, not even with usin’ Missus McGavock’s fancy ones.”

  “That’s wonderful, Tempy. It should be a few minutes yet before Dr. Phillips returns. So let me finish with things in here, and I’ll come down to help.”

  “I seen Dr. Phillips in the backyard just now, ma’am, helpin’ one of them other docs. There’s a colonel, a big boulder of a man by the name of Farrell, havin’ both his legs took off under the Osage orange tree. They havin’ some kind of trouble, I heard ’em say. I didn’t stop to find out what.” She shook her head. “It’s grim work they doin’, but I guess it got to be done.”

  Miss Clouston said something in response that Roland couldn’t make out.

  As she made her way back across the room, she whispered encouragement to the wounded she passed. And everywhere her gaze touched, she left kindness. The soldiers responded to it too. And whether Miss Clouston was aware of it or not—and Roland felt certain she wasn’t—their gazes followed her. Much as his own did now.

  She settled back onto the child’s chair beside him. Expectation filled her expression, and a pretty brown curl escaped the hair knotted at the nape of her neck.

  “I’m sorry for the interruption, Captain. You were telling me about what you saw this morning. Atop Merrill’s Hill.”

  Not really wanting to, Roland reached back for the thoughts he’d gladly laid aside. “The Federal Army beat us to Franklin today by several hours. So by the time we got here, they were well entrenched and fortified. They’d been busy little beavers, as one of the officers standing beside me said.” He thought of Daniel Ranslett, the fellow captain and sharpshooter who’d accompanied him to Merrill’s Hill. Ranslett was a fine officer and a crack shot, and hailed from around these parts. He hadn’t seen Ranslett since they’d gotten separated on the battlefield, and he hoped his friend had made it through. “So judging from what I saw before the battle, and then what I observed in the midst of that cauldron of smoke and fire after the battle began . . .”

  He briefly shut his eyes, and images rose to his mind; images he feared were so fiercely burned into him that he’d never again close his eyes without seeing them. Confederate brothers piled one atop the other like snowdrifts come winter. Men who’d been shot and killed while in the act of reloading their muskets, firearms and ramrods still in their grip.

  “There’s no way the Federals tucked tail and ran, ma’am. They were ready for us. We came at them on an open field with daylight still stretching, so they could see us every step of the way. Even when the sun had dropped behind the hills, their artillery lit up the night sky above. They’d dug ditches and piled up breastworks three feet high in some places and had capped them with head logs.”

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sp; Delicate wrinkles knit her brow. “What’s a head log?”

  “It’s where you take a tree trunk or a branch, as big as you can find, and heft it to the top of the pile of dirt. Then you dig out a little of the dirt to create a peek hole beneath it. Enough to fit the barrel of your gun through. The top of your head is better protected that way as you take aim.”

  She nodded, her expression smoothing.

  “Their line of entrenchments stretched for a good two miles in a sort of crescent from the Harpeth River on the southeast part of town to the bend of the river to the northwest. We counted six artillery batteries from atop the hill earlier in the day and thirty-eight Napoleon guns.”

  “Cannons,” she said quietly. “I saw those earlier today too. From the second-story gallery porch on the back of the house.”

  He nodded. “Looking across the field, we could see the sun’s last rays gleaming off their bayonets. General Schofield’s men had polished them up special for us.”

  Her expression sobered, and he knew she was trying to picture the scene. A scene he refused to paint in its truest colors. Not to a woman. Besides, he’d had enough talk of battle for two lifetimes. He had something else he wanted to say to her.

  “I’ve been meaning to thank you, ma’am, for what you did. Lieutenant Shuler here gave me a full accounting of how you championed my cause when the doctor aimed to take my leg.” Roland nodded toward Shuler, who was lying near him. “Shuler said he’d put you up against General Schofield any day.”

  “It’s true,” Shuler piped up. “She told Doc Phillips just how it was, Captain. And she didn’t back down either.”

  Roland smiled. “I don’t doubt it. Even in the short time I’ve known this lady, I’ve learned she has a verbal arsenal of sufficient variety at the ready.”

  “A verbal arsenal?” she repeated, brows arching. “I’m not certain I should take that as a compliment.” But the sparkle in her eyes said differently. She gave both him and Shuler a look of feigned scolding, and Roland would’ve sworn from the young lieutenant’s grin that Shuler had been given another dose of morphine. Miss Clouston’s kind and calming demeanor had a definite tonic to it. And those deep blue eyes didn’t hurt either.